What goes in the ocean goes in you !

From Sea to Sea. Marine debris – plastics, metals, glass, and other solid waste materials that enter the ocean environment – can be found virtually everywhere in the ocean. 60 to 95 percent of it is plastic.

Animals trying to avoid ocean plastic have to navigate a minefield. Eighteen billion pounds of it flows into the ocean every year, making it difficult for animals, like jellyfish, to avoid.

Ocean plastic also smells appetizing to some marine critters. In 2016, a study in the journal Science Advances found that algae easily grows on ocean plastic, and as it breaks down, it emits an odor called dimethyl sulfide that attracts hungry animals.

It’s a complicated problem, of which researchers are still trying to grasp the scale.

“If we want to understand the fate of plastic in the ocean, we have to start at the bottom of the food chain.”